SpaceX rocket stage to strike Moon at 5,400 mph, observed by NASA and South Korean orbiter

A spent upper stage of a SpaceX launch vehicle that carried two lunar landers in early 2025 is expected to hit the Moon at roughly 5,400 miles per hour (8,690 km/h), about seven times the speed of sound. The impact, slated for several months after the stage completed its mission, will be closely monitored by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter, which will photograph the site before and after the collision. Danuri will also approach the descending stage a few minutes prior to impact.

NASA has previously conducted intentional lunar impacts, including sections of the Saturn V rocket and discarded landers during the Apollo era and the LCROSS mission in 2009, to generate seismic data and search for ice. This time, researchers aim to study how the impact alters the lunar surface, estimating the released energy to be comparable to about three tons of TNT. While the event will not be visible from Earth, the lack of atmosphere and low lunar gravity could allow ejecta to travel for miles, potentially observable with telescopes.

"The gravity on the moon is low and there is no wind to blow the dust away," said Benjamin Fernando of Los Alamos National Laboratory. "Part of the reason for our interest in this event is to figure out how much of a hazard debris impacts pose to future astronauts."